


Permeated By False Warmth

by sobastyles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Depression, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobastyles/pseuds/sobastyles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s when the nights creep up on him—slow and dark and entirely too cold—that he finds the praise and positive attention a little too hard to swallow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permeated By False Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lorrayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorrayne/gifts), [vashtaneradas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vashtaneradas/gifts).



> Nothing really to say. I had no plans of writing this until I was in the middle of a panic attack myself and needed a distraction. So obviously the most logical thing to do was to start penning down every experience I could properly translate into words. Voila. Have some feelings.

There are days when Harry Styles truly and completely loves everything about who he is and what he does.  
  
Those are the days when the crowds are pulsing, the screams are deafening, and the music is piercing. They’re the days when a well-known local bakeshop is less than a 5 minute walk away from the venue; when he can flick through shuffle on his iPod and hit all of his current favourite songs straight in a row and cause Zayn to have a conniption about the amount of times he has to listen to New Politics rather than the latest Maxwell tune. They’re the days when Liam wraps his fingers around a beer and loosens up backstage, tossing his arms around Niall’s neck and making the Irishman cackle something fierce as they ride around the venue together. They're the days when Louis smiles a little brighter than normal and has a little more bounce to his step because of an array of sweet compliments he receives from a particularly grateful fan.  
  
Those days, Harry thinks, he can understand why people put up with the overwhelming negativity. He can understand how they fight through the ever-growing pile of reviews bashing on their young ages or Harry’s inability to stray away from the older company he likes to keep. _(It isn’t his fault if he prefers people with a little more life experience. They’re a hell of a lot more tolerable than most people his age, anyways. Their stories are more captivating, their words of sympathy for his plight as the band’s “face member” a lot more genuine.)_ He can even understand how they carry the weight of all of the hate both fans and non-fans alike post all over the internet. Slanders at everything from his appearance to his stage presence. When a good day like that happens, wherein Harry can feel the sun on his face and the wind in his hair; one or all of the boys at his side, pinching it so he messes up for all the right reasons during a song rather than the wrong ones, it makes sense to him.  
  
It’s when the nights creep up on him—slow and dark and entirely too cold—that he finds the praise and positive attention a little too hard to swallow. When promises of “Next show will be better for sure, Harry,” and “I get wobbly on that bit all the time, mate. Don’t sweat it,” fall on deaf ears. It’s when he finds himself in situations like his current one, where his back is cemented into his standard-issue hotel mattress, that he can’t bear to hear another false remark of how it’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to be imperfect, because he knows it isn’t. Not in his position. Not for him.  
  
Crisp hotel sheets are laid out evenly over his stomach, and his pillow is fluffed up precisely how he likes it beneath his head. The curtains are closed, all the lights are off, and the temperature meter is set to low. He should be able to sleep.

He can’t.  
  
For all the things that are set in place, a million other things seem to be out of place. Mainly his head. He can hear the “tick” of the digital clock next to him as it switches from 3:41 to 3:42. _(He knows what time it is because he’d tilted his head to check a few seconds before, even though he swore he wouldn’t. His mother always told him that trying to keep track of the time while falling asleep was the worst thing he could do.)_ He can hear Louis snoring away to the right of him, and for a few brief seconds he’s jealous. He knows he shouldn’t be. He does this to himself, time and time again even though he keeps telling himself that it needs to stop. That all of these inane problems and questions in the early hours of the morning do nothing for him but keep him up, keep him thinking, spike his breathing into another attack.  
  
And there’s where it starts. Acknowledging the issue. It’s as though a time bomb is ignited within his brain, numbers hidden so he can’t ever count down the seconds until it's going to happen. Irony, he thinks. Comedic or dramatic, of which it is he’s not certain. But he knows the minute it begins, because his hands start tapping rhythmically against his hip. Harry’s eyes shift from the cracks and stains on the ceiling to the wall next to Louis’ head. A perfect beige. So neutral; neither angry, nor sad, nor happy. Just stagnant, and there. Sort of a miserable existence, but also a peaceful one. Harry’s existence isn’t peaceful.  
  
14 breaths per minute.  
  
 _Normal._  
  
Harry moves his line of sight back to the ceiling. With the wall comes the brief glances to Louis’ cheekbones, his lips, the slope of his nose. With the wall comes the coveting of the kind of beauty he isn’t allowed to have, because he knows nothing will ever compare to Louis Tomlinson, least of which the likes of himself. With the wall comes the admission that the rise and fall of Louis’ chest reminds him of the bumps on the road felt when their tour bus grazes over them with its wheels. The tour bus is home, and in likeness so is Louis.  
  
18 breaths per minute.  
  
 _Slightly above normal._  
  
Harry digs his teeth into his bottom lip, eyes closing themselves off from the ceiling and shrouding him into a more permanent blackness that licks discomfort at his face because his eyelids are shut too tightly to be normal. Nothing’s normal anymore. Not like this. His fingers tighten around his hip, blunt nails digging into his skin. Four red marks that will disappear given an hour or so, but he’ll still feel the ghost of them in the morning when his jeans hug low on his frame as the group sits down for an entirely too early breakfast. Liam will crack an eager grin like the morning person he is, Zayn will poke lazily at his set of dry pancakes soaked in as much table syrup as he can tolerate, Niall will attempt to build a castle out of the boxed jelly packs provided in the holding rack, Louis will grumble softly into his coffee about being up at an ungodly hour as he knocks his leg into Harry’s with a tired smile, and Harry will still be able to feel the marks on his skin because the guilt is always there. The feeling of suffocation is always wrapped around his throat, even in the middle of the day.  
  
23 breaths per minute.  
  
 _Definitely not normal._  
  
Harry grits his teeth tightly, lips pressed into a firm line. He hates this. Hates the way it builds up in his skin, in his bones, in his lungs. Hates the way he can honestly feel the anxiety swallowing him alive. He’s trembling now, a few tears beginning to seep from his closed eyelids, but he doesn’t have the power to wipe them away. For a few seconds, he’s frozen solid. His eyes snap open, he inhales deep and sharp, and he can’t move a muscle. He’s going to die like this. Just like this, in his bed, chest-up like a corpse on a medical table and the boys won’t know what hit them. A sudden fit in the night, they’ll say. Maybe a heart attack, maybe sleep apnea. Maybe they’ll cackle evilly and say they wanted this anyways. Maybe this is what they planned all along, planting little scenarios and triggers in his life to set him off as many times as possible until he finally snapped and subconsciously offed himself in his sleep.  
  
He can feel the panic rising like the crescendo of an orchestra—the strings vibrating furiously, the woodwind a shrill hum, and the brass thumping in a Jaws-like manner as Harry nears the pinnacle of his performance. He’s managed to curl in on himself now, body facing towards Louis like somehow he can will the boy from sleep to touch him, hold him, “Please Louis, I’ll do anything if you just make it stop.” Quick, short breaths rattle Harry’s ribcage and he can’t breathe, he can’t. This isn’t breathing. He isn’t inhaling oxygen. He’s inhaling water and he’s drowning, right here, right in the middle of his hotel room. He’s drowning without water and isn’t that an amazing feat? He’s going to make headlines in the morning when the pathologist cuts him open and water cascades from his lungs onto the floor. Fish will flop around the polished linoleum and critics will say it was the final performance they had all been waiting for, for years upon years without ever getting it. Harry Styles delivered, ladies and gentlemen. A full show-stopper.  
  
A sob rips its way from his lips and then he can’t stop crying. He feels the cold grip around his heart squeezing the life out of it long before he feels the set of warm arms wrapping around his waist. Even then it’s a distant reaction, hiccuping a few times as the figure next to him—Louis, he realizes, wanting to smile but unable to, but it doesn’t _matter_ because Louis is coming to _save_ him—brushes the salty residue away from his cheeks. There’s a noise like chirping crickets in his ear that he comes to identify as Louis shushing him, hands carding through Harry’s messy hair. His face is pressed into Louis’ neck now, and he holds fast to the boy’s frame because he fears for his life if he doesn’t. He’s teetering on the edge of a cliff, and Louis is the only thing preventing him from toppling off backwards, hurtling towards the unknown without being able to see. “Hold your breath, Harry. Hold your breath,” Louis whispers, a hand cupping at his cheek, and so he does.  
  
The water ceases to flow. The fish cease to breathe, the instruments cease to hum, and Harry exhales quickly, shivering. Louis is at the helm of his ship, directing him into safer waters and telling him to “Hold your breath again, Harry. For as long as you can, hold it, okay?” He does. His heart begins to slow, the trembling dies down to a gentle quake, and Harry can open his eyes without feeling afraid of what he might find if he does. For a few seconds all he’s able to see are daystars, dotting his vision and making a colourful array of miscellaneous constellations in the dark. When they part and clear, all that’s left is Louis. Louis with his shining eyes and matted hair, sleep lines embedded deep into the skin of his face. As tired as Louis looks, he’s worried. There’s concern, and fear, as is always the case for someone who’s never experienced a panic attack themselves. Harry vehemently hopes Louis never has to.  
  
“Harry...” It’s a whisper, but it seems so loud in the silence of their room. The only external sounds now are the “tick” of the clock as it shifts to a number Harry doesn’t know, and the gentle circulation of air from the conditioning unit on the wall. Harry rests his forehead tiredly against Louis’, clammy and weak fingers gripping at the boy’s wrist. “I’m sorry.” It comes out as more of a rasp than anything, and it grates at Harry’s throat painfully. He winces. “For what?” Louis’ answering tone is incredulous and it makes Harry want to cry all over again, but he won’t do that. Not this time. “For waking you up.”  
  
Harry can feel the movement of Louis’ head against his, and he guesses that Louis is shaking his head. Just like him to be humble about it. “You say that every time, Harry. Don’t ever be sorry for waking me up. This isn’t just you. You’re not alone. Whatever’s got you all twisted up, I promise none of it is real.” Except it is, but if Harry were to laugh and disagree with Louis, Harry knows Louis would get angry with him, and he can’t do that to him after the boy just rescued him again, like he always does. Like he continues to do even though Harry says to just give up because it’s a lost cause. This isn’t going to heal and it’s never going to get better no matter what Harry tries to do. So instead he mutters, “Thank you.”  
  
Louis’ fingers slide down his jaw, tilt his head up so that their lips capture, soft and unexpecting of anything. And maybe that’s why Harry continues to let Louis save him even when he tells Louis off for it in daylight moments where he’s coherent. When Louis touches him, or kisses him, it feels like he can heal. And when Louis looks at him like he is now, with his eyes tender and his mouth turned up at the corners in a private smile, Harry feels like he doesn’t have to change a thing, because as much as he’s repeatedly convinced there’s something wrong with himself, Louis believes there isn’t.  
  
And maybe that’s okay.


End file.
